STRESS & TRANSPARENCY

Stress is a reaction to circumstances,
An inner and outer,
Physical, mental  and emotional
Web of tensions we feel
When the circumstances and events of our life
Do not match up
With the way we additively demand that they should be;
When there's something about the energy of What-Is
And The Way-That-It-Is
That we're resisting.

Circumstances do not cause stress;
We cause stress.
Stress is something we do to ourself.
Other things just trigger it.

The things we struggle with are a pretty good indication
Of the level of consciousness that we're in at the time.
(We do move around a bit, you know)

When we're under stress
We mistakenly blame the energy of the What-Is
For creating the stress.
We make the problem worse.
The problem isn't the energy,
It's our resistance to it.
But we're so used to resistance and stress,
And so hooked on the temporary aliveness it generates,
(Stress is guarana for the psyche)
We assume
"Some stress is necessary. How could I live without it?

Happily.

If you've had enough of stress,
And are serious about getting off it,
Here's the bottom line --

What-Is, Is.
That energy isn't going to shift for you, me or anyone else who gets in its way.
When we resist it, What-Is exhausts us and bowls us over:
If, on the other hand, we become transparent to it,
What-Is will energise us and pass on through.
We can change our response to the energy
By becoming more fluid, more flexible and more transparent to it.
The more we can allow --
Let go of attachment --
Let go of the effort to control --
Let go of our addictions to the way we're so sure it "should" be --
Stress will abate
To reveal Equanimity.

Expanding your awareness
Lessens the capacity of people and events to trigger
A stress reaction in you.

You get stressed when you give away your power
To respond appropriately;
When you insist that things and people should be
Other than the way they seem to be to you right now.

The last word --
The difference between Control and Power is
Control restricts.
Power allows.

Now watch you mind go crazy..............

CENTRED AND BALANCED...

When you are balanced -- centred,
Energy passes transparently through you
Without you getting snagged on the quality of the energy (feelings & emotions).
When you are off-centre -- un-balanced,
You get snagged on a feeling about something
That is peripheral to your Self.
The feeling then becomes a mood,
Shrouding your whole day
And filtering the thoughts that get through to you.
You become preoccupied with the peripheral stuff,
Perverting the pure energy
And creating a condition that will last until you un-hook
And re-gain your balance-point.

DISEASE

Symptoms of physical and emotional dis-ease
Can be invitations
To re-locate,
And re-centre
The activating energy
At some other level of your being.

Whenever possible
Treat your stuff an up-grade.
Release it into a wider and deeper context.
If you don't have one ready, make one up.
(eg. try "Healing-ness")

Otherwise,
At low levels of conditioning,
Every un-released dis-ease
Turns in on itself,
Consuming You in the process.

TUNE IN

Each of us is a living, breathing, walking, talking
Receiver and transducer of thought waves.
Living a Fulfilling life depends
On how many dimensions
And how many frequencies
We choose to tune into
And re-broadcast.

Some people live across a very wide range of available experiences,
Receiving and transmitting over a broad bandwidth:
Others live within a very narrow range --
Some at the top end,
Some at the bottom,
And most clustered somewhere around an "acceptable" mid-range.
Anything that impinges from outside of their comfort zone
Is seen as either a calamity or a miracle.
Any possibility that exists outside the same comfort zone.
Is "known" by those within its walls to be impossible.

Wherever each person is on the scale,
And however broad or narrow is the range they embrace,
Their lives are full of it.
Quantity of experience is never the issue;
It's about the Quality.

The more dimensions
And the wider the range of frequencies
We choose to encompass,
The more magnificent will be the range of phenomena
That become a natural part of our daily experience.
The more we tune into,
The more we receive and transmute.
There is no limit to this,
Until you say "Enough".

EXISTENCE IS EASY

Unless you say otherwise,
Existence is easy.
Without you ever having to think about it,
Your heart keeps beating,
Your lungs keep breathing,
You food keeps digesting and nourishing you.....
Existence is easy for you.

But you are not easy with existence.
Why?

Somewhere along the way
You got separated from the easy-ness of it
And started to struggle
To Accomplish
What used to come naturally.

Then you adopted the thought
"It should be different from the way that it is."
You tried to change existence
Instead of getting yourself back into alignment with it.

Why do you decide to suffer like that?
And you did decide that.
You still do.
Why?
You don't do it for no reason.
No, that's your mind copping out to avoid the truth.
What's supposed to be the juice for you
In suffering?
What?...........
Sit with that
Until you get it.
Then, and only then,
You'll get how pointless it is.
And why life feels so point-less
And why you feel so point-less in it.

Then
You'll get the point.
All by yourself.
And existence will be easy once more.

SELF- LESSNESS

Arrange an introduction
And a getting-to-know you
Between your self
And The Self.

Spend time together with..........
The Self.
And fold in other selves
As they approach nearby.
In-vite them to join in.....
You may be amazed
How much we all have in common.

THE POWER OF YOUR ATTENTION

You empower
Whatever you give your attention to.
The quality of your attention
Determines the quality of the power it will exert in your life
And the kind of hold it will have over you.

Whatever you allow to be
Will let you be.

If something is bugging you,
Don't try to ignore it;
Let it be.
Let it be.

And  empower something else instead.

LOOKING FOR "MY" SOUL MATE -- A letter to women on Mating Sites

It's no secret that I subscribed 5 months ago to a matchmaking service.

I won't be renewing.

In 85% of the "compatible introductions" I get,

The seeker asks

"What do you think of Soul Mates?"

On first view I thought "That's a good question," 
And it got me thinking about the concept...
But by the 147th time I'm thinking
"There's some dysfunctional poverty going on here."

And since the reply has to be in 3 short sentences

I get the uncomfortable feeling

It's either a loaded question,

Or a statement, disguised as a question

(Like "What do you think of child pornography?")

Either way, this is the answer the mating site doesn't have room for........

Dear Seeker,

What is it with this pandemic hunger for a soul mate?
What is it you're looking for
That you want me to go responsible for providing to you?
Is it someone who is a "perfect fit" for you?
I'd like to know, before I get involved
In something that may not be healthy for either of us.

Open your eyes, woman, you're surrounded by soul mates!
Soul mates are people who slide into your life at just the right time
And remind you of your divine joy,
Talk you over any barbed wire fence you get stuck on,
And if necessary,
Slap you awake.

But no. You've bought the juvenile idea that
Love is in Limited Supply
And ideally you should narrow yourself down to someone "special",
Someone who'll tick every single one of your Needs boxes
Forever 'til death do you part.
And you'll have to fulfill every one of his needs, too --
For Ever.

Do you really want to go responsible for all my needs?
Or at age 67 would you expect that by now
I'd have learned to stand on my own two feet?
Same here.

If you're looking for a perfect mesh,
Someone who won't ever grind your gears,
I do wish you Good Luck.

Like everything else in this life,
If you believe that, out of umpteen billion people on this planet
There is one perfect Soul Mate just for you,
Then you make it so:
That is your reality.
I hope you find him.

A problem, though, with this belief in a Soul Mate is that
If Mr. Right doesn't show up within your available time frame,
You may settle for Mr. Nearly-Right.
But you won't give him ALL of your love --
You'll keep some in reserve, just in case Mr. Absolutely Right shows up late.
(Guys, you do the same, too).

For me,
That kind of "Soul Mate" is a romantic fiction,
A beautiful fantasy,
A nice (foolishly simple) idea.
Sweetly naive.
And romance is a lovely game to play;
I'm a sucker for it.
But........
It is a game.
As a way of living,
Romantic Love carries within it the seeds of its own destruction.
That doesn't mean that the death of a relationship based solely on romance is inevitable,
Just likely.
Look at the divorce stats.

Are there Soul Mates? Yes!!
I'm surrounded by kindred spirits --
People with whom I share flashes of recognition.
And as a Lifeline counsellor, I (anonymously) garnered several more during the course of every shift.
The further I go on this journey,
The more plentiful soul mates become.
I shamelessly set out each day to collect them.
Some of them I don't even know their names, nor they mine,
And I'll probably never encounter them again.
Others are my best friends.
But there are not many soul mates of any kind
That I'd choose to live with,
And even less that I want to bonk.
(And I've no doubt the feeling would be mutual).

So, dear lady,
I have a few questions about Soul Mates
And the notion of Special Love --
The two get confused, don't they?......
1) What do you really mean when you use the term "Soul Mates" -- your capitals, not mine? Under your legitimate yearning for connection, is there an expectant hope of exclusivity?
2) Where would the whole Disney/Mills & Boon industry be without your active support of them?
3) When do you plan to grow up and realise.....?
I am already your soul mate.

Now, I suspect that, as you read this,
The notion of welcoming me as your soul mate may be rapidly becoming less and less appealing to you;
However, please consider this perception I've gleaned
From countless heartbroken and heartbreaking calls on Lifeline
From women and men --

Love is inclusive, not exclusive.
Jealousy is an insane, irrational emotion

That arises from a thought of

"Without you, I am not enough and sufficient unto myself."

If I could emotionally stand on my own two feet,

It wouldn't matter much

What you do or don't do.
That does not mean I don't care about you;
It just means I don't need you in order to survive,
But I'd love to have you by me for entertainment and comfort.

(It's hard to imagine a life lived in that kind of freedom, isn't it?)

You asked me what I think about Soul Mates:
Here it is --

The idea called "Soul Mates" is fine, if you believe in it.
If, however, my loving you
Is going to cost me
The freedom to love any or all of my other soul mates,
(I said "love", not "sleep with", or even fantasise about "sleeping with")
Then I may well wake up one day resenting you.

And if you are truly honest with yourself,
You'll see that possibility for yourself, too.
I don't want to ever resent you,
Or be resented by you.

As unromantic is this may sound,
I do not intend to sacrifice anyone or anything important in my life
In order to be with you,
Nor do I expect that of you.
If you and I get together in any way, shape or form,
Let us each add to the richness of what sustains us already.
I don't want any relationship
To take over and exclude all else --
That's for parasites,
And I've had my fill of those suckers.

I want this relationship to enrich what I now have,
And I want the same for you.

Have we got a deal?

RIGHTEOUS UNCERTAINTY

The level of righteous energy exerted
On a person or situation
Is inversely proportional
To the Uncertainty and Grief that underpins it?

QUIET PLEASE!!

The way of yoga is quieting the mind
The way of tantra is finding the quiet
Behind the mind
And feeling into that.
One is a way of discipline;
One is a way of surrender.
Both work
Choose the flavour that suits your style.

I've tried both.
First yoga -  I found it controlling and hard work;
Then tantra - I find that explorative and fun.
Being devoutly curious and a bit of a drifter
Who likes getting "creatively lost",
I've chosen the latter.
But that's just me.

CHRONIC STRESS

A pretty good indication
That there's something you need to stop doing,
And something else you could start being.

NATURE

Nature reflects that which we are.

Let nature be your constant teacher and guide,
Again and again
Bringing you back to your self.

LET GO -- THE LEAP INTO LIFE

At the point of letting-go deeply
Paralysis may occur.
It's not unusual for our ego,
Ever eager to protect its dominance over us,
To call up counter-attack forces
In the tussle between our inner and outer lives,
And our higher and lower perceptions and aspirations.

It's at this point of forsaking
The way we've always "done" life
That the mind's resistance to transformation
May invoke personality or physical health issues.
You may feel like you're going crazy,
Or illness may rear its ugly head.

As serious as they are, though,
These may not be the core problem:
They may be dizzying, warping and weaving distractions
To put you off the main game.
Don't ignore any dis-ease;
Treat it appropriately
At every level you're aware of,
But be aware also that
Discomfort and pain may be symptomatic
Of something more profound also going on.

Be aware that it is in the nature of Mind to do ANYTHING
To ensure the survival of itself,
And anything it identifies itself with.
Be in no doubt about that.
There's a parasitic aspect to Ego
That makes You, as host, expendable.
Your mind and its constructs,
Judiciously used
Are neccessary and, up to a point, useful,
But they're not your best friends.
They never were.

Looking at the wider picture,
Whats at stake here is a fundamental, energetic life-force
Inviting us to wake up,
And drawing us all into a deeper involvement
With life on a larger scale than we presently think possible.
This awakening force, though, expands us
Into spaces of apparent chaos, formlessness and nothingness.
We may find our minds dizzily spinning out,
Oscillating disconcertingly
Between

• A deep desire to DO something that will ground us enough to abate these awful feelings and sensations; And 
• A formless void where there is nothing that can be done but let go of the handrails and leap.....

Which to do?

Well, my answer is "Both".
For what it's worth to you,
Here's how I do it.......

First, I let go into the chaos.
I choose, again and again if need be
To trust that every road I've ever followed has led me to here now;
This now is what I came for.
And
I grab every arising opportunity
To engage in any appropriate outward activity,
No mater how large or small, important or trivial
That helps me express my be-ing.
For example,
One of the ways I define myself is as "someone who makes a difference".
A satisfying activity, for me, can range from spending time with someone who's suffering or lost,
To picking up and binning a piece of garbage.......
Any conscious activity that expresses my need to "make a difference"
Works a treat,
If that's why I'm doing it.

So, how do you define your self?
State it. Write it down and stick it to your 'fridge.
Life will deliver opportunities to express your choice
Right to your door.
Deliberately honour every chance you can see to real-ise your self in action.
Keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to do something in such a way that says
"This is me, doing what I choose to be."
It will help keep you grounded.
And it does wonders for your self-esteem. too.

I've found it's possible to feel blissfully secure
While falling into the unknown.
But that's just so much hot air.
You won't know that
Until you dive in and experience for yourself.
At first your mind will recoil;
Then, at another level of awareness, you'll realise
"No, this is OK. I'm OK. Let's wait and see what happens."

The trick (if there is one) is -
Leap first.
I didn't find out who I really am and what I'm really capable of
Until I let go of everyone and everything I'd been hanging onto for support.
When there's no-one else, you find out, in real experience,
What you are
And who your best friend is......
One and the same.

At a time when no particular doing grabs your enthusiasm any more,
Jump in anyway
(the choice is simpler then, isn't it?)
After the leap,
A way to creatively engage with the tunnel,
And creatively express your self
Will present itself to you.
If it doesn't, ask someone (how about the first person you meet?)
What you can do for them.
Crazy?
Well, you've tried the sensible stuff already.
How far has that got you?

Talk, too, to someone who's been through what you're going through
(there are lots of us out here)
And we'll all tell you the same thing.......

No matter how long the tunnel seems,
It is a tunnel
And, even if you can't see that far yet,
It's open at the other end.
Keep coming.

I once travelled by rail along the Brennario Pass,
Through the Alps between Italy and Austria.
As the way became steeper, the track plunged into a tunnel.
After what seemed an eternity, we emerged into a brilliant vista that was surprisingly more spectacular than anything I'd ever experienced before,
Until we were plunged into a second tunnel,
And then a third, and a fourth....
But on each emergence,
The view got more and more magnificent.
Such is my experience of the Journey of Transformation.......
Tunnels and vistas -- alternating.

Before every Leap,
Logic and reason intervene,
Trying to consider first all the angles.
That's a pointless pursuit;
Mind cannot imagine anywhere it has never been.
This tunnel of transformation
Traverses your - as yet - Unknown and Unknowable Self.
You're out of range of your mind.

Transformation and healing have to begin with a leap of Absolute Trust, or there's no leap at all;
There are no half-measures available on the way to transformation;
You cannot be partly pregnant.

What prompts me to leap?
Sometimes the very fears that would discourage me;
I get to a point where
They simply cannot be denied or reasoned away any longer,
So I consent to being pushed.

While you're traversing the tunnels,
Some doubts may come up for you.
I pass these on so that, if they nag at you, you'll know
You're not alone
And that they are the attempted distractions
Of a mind about to be put in its place...........

SOME (POSSIBLY SURPRISING) OPPORTUNITIES FOR TRANSFORMATION AND HEALING.....

• Crisis (any one will do)
• Illness (ditto)
• Physical, mental or emotional dis-ease
• Thoughts like "Am I going crazy?" "Am I sick?" "What is becoming of me?" "I was doing so well: what went wrong?"
• Separating feelings like failure, fear, distrust, uncertainty, loss, confusion, hurt, grief, boredom, anger, irritation, disgust, stupidity, fury, being victimised.........

Opportunities for transformation and healing often come disguised as the very opposite of what we expect them to look like. We may feel we are creating, or are the victim of, the very thing we most fear (including fear itself). 

At what point do we shift 

From seeing our condition as a road to hell, 

To seeing it instead as a process of transcending?

I cannot tell you.

When faced with an optical illusion,

Some people will get the "click" quickly,

And others may stare at it for hours on end,

And some will give up looking altogether......

You'll get it when you get it,

And it will be sometime before you die;

That's the best I can promise you.

In the meantime you can help yourself

By staying open to every possibility.

Drop any idea of what "it" should look like

When "it" happens;

Expectations will always prevent you from "getting it".

As Colin Hayes said often --

"Take what you get when you get it,

And don't take what you don't get when you don't get it.

Got it?

Drop all your preconceptions,

No matter how well founded you think they are....

Transformation is virgin territory.

It's going to come as YOUR first-hand, first-time, unique experience,

Not a copy of someone else's.

There are no guarantees of a happy ending

And the process may throw up de-powering physical, emotional and mental challenges

That first require your creative attention.

Your question can always be --

How can I engage with this now

And use it

To empower me?

Standing in such an enquiry

Encourages you to form a new quality of living presence

That will help you transcend

The limitations of your present condition.

There is no end point to transformation and healing;

No goal to be achieved.

"I'm here!" is a joyful progress report,

Not a cry from the summit.

Enjoy the view.... and .....

There is always more.

Let your moment-by-moment experience

Be a totally alive present,

And a birthing of the next moment

And a dying of the previous.

Such aliveness, and receiving and letting-go

Will determine whether you are waking up 

Or going to sleep.

Whilever you are fully in the experience you're having

And waking up

You will radiate love, aliveness and innocent wisdom --

You cannot hide that.

The same process is happening for many on this plane at this time --

You are not alone,

And you are all-one.

For each of us the story differs,

But the transforming process is the same --

One process - many participants - many ways.

Existence is transforming even as we speak, passing you by

Until you choose to join in.

When you finally release into this realisation

You will begin to sense

Both the inexorable onwardness that is carrying you along

And the vast complexity that binds us all,

At varying levels of existence, experience and awareness

Into the one process we call Living.

HANDLING THE UNKNOWN

It can be a bit like going to live in a new country --

Get out and around,

Get familiar with the layout,

Learn the language,

Say "Hi" to the folks,

Get to know the new rules, the customs, and "the way it's done here",

And be appropriate to them.

Expect some stress,

Our minds usually tolerate only so much

Before resisting the unfamiliar.

First, make it OK to be shifted and tossed around

By the currents and eddies of change.

Drop every urge to fight the flow.

It's just culture shock

Make it OK to open slowly

And explore everything gradually.

There's no need to rush.

Surrender to each new experience,

And gradually get into harmony with it.

(Unison is not required)

Wherever you find yourself,

Sense the energy of each new emotional, physical, spiritual and mental locale;

Strike a fresh sense of balance.

Allow times of uncertainty, fear, sadness or loss if they crop up --

Such feelings are common and natural responses to radical change.

Allow new energies to flow over and through you unimpeded.

Allow old boundaries to dissolve.

Allow the fullest possible flush of new freedom

To sweep you up.

Now is the only available time

To be stretched and re-shaped

By the powerful forces of what is 

As yet un-known.

The adventurer needs only three items in his travel kit --

• Willingness to venture
• Openness to experience
• Personal integrity.

A word of warning, though.....

Once the new journey has begun

There is no way to return to the old world.

Evolution will not go backwards:

We cannot return to mother's womb --

There isn't room there any more.

Once begun, the process must continue,

Of allowing, assimilating and re-balancing

To integrate 

With a new way of Be-ing.

HEALING OR CURE?

A Cure is a "fix",
Remediation.
The symptoms are treated
To the point where they are no longer apparent
And the patient is regarded as "cured".
But what about the dysfunctionality that gave rise to the disease?
That may continue to lurk
Unhealed.

Healing is "wholling" --
Making Whole.
Re-integrating that which got separated.

A Cure is change;
Healing is transformation.

I've just had bypass surgery.
Problem cured.
But healing the years of dis-ease-making habits
Like stress, anxiety, frustration, anger,
And the things I did to overcome them.....
That is something else altogether.

Without healing,
Cures are only apparent
And temporary

A condition can be cured without healing taking place,
Often leading to recurrence of the symptoms,
Or the emergence of more serious ones.

Similarly, Healing does not always lead to a cure.
Some dis-eases turn out to be irreversible,
But, even without a cure,
Healing can happen.
Nevertheless.

EASTER NOW

When do you intend to cease suffering?
When will you quit this cross of your own making?

When is it time for your resurrection?

You say.
It's your call.

TRAPS & OBSTACLES

There's only one major obstacle to Happiness --
Our own ego's ideas, concepts, opinions and beliefs,
And it's promise --
"Adopt these and you'll be happy."

There's only one major Trap --
Thinking that thinking alone will get us over the obstacles.

Ego can't solve itself!
We need something larger than mere mind.
Fortunately,
We are larger than that,
And we're all-ready, all that we need.

Look within.
Ask for help if you need it,
But from someone who will direct you deeply
Into yourself.
The only valid answers to your questions
Lie within you.
You are Your Question and Your Answer -- both.
You are both Sinner and Saviour.

BE-AWARE

Regardless of what we do --
To engage or avoid,
Anything in our makeup that we're unwilling to accept,
Or look at,
Will cause us pain,
Sooner or later.

I once worked with a man who'd had a bad experience with doctors.
He refused point-blank to have anything more to do with them.
By the time I knew him, he was covered in boils.
He died a slow and horribly painful death from septicemia.
Well, that was his conscious choice.

Personally, I've been happy to endure a short, sharp pang of pain,
Have the boil lanced
And be done with it.
That's my choice.

What's yours?

SUFFERING -- A QUESTION WORTH STANDING IN.....

• What is it here that's more important than being at one with myself?

LOGIC & REASON -v- TRUST & SURRENDER

Trust and Surrender
Are the womb of a growing Conscious Awareness.
Logic an Reason are amongst the essential nutrients
Needed to nourish the growing Self.
But without Trust and Surrender
To contain and sustain it
An embryo of New Awareness,
Fed on logic and reason alone,
Will be stillborn.

In the process of growing,
Trust and Surrender have to be reached into
Time and again.

ANGER

I've been standing in a question --

"Why do I start boiling at the public behaviour and verbal vomiting of politicians?"

An answer popped last night .........

Anger is my dialogue with a looming pall of Despair.


When threatened, I get angry ... I knew that.
But it was a blinding flash of the bloody obvious to discover what it is that I feel threatened by
And what lay at the base of my depression and anxiety.

Why would I feel threatened by a feeling?
Because "I" thinks "I can't handle this."

A feeling does not need to be handled;
It can be experienced.
Safely.
We are, after all, bigger than the feelings we generate --
The fruit cannot swallow the tree.

GETTING WARMER.....

When I was  kid we used to play a game called "Hideys".
One of us closed our eyes and counted aloud to 20 while the other hid an object.
As the seeker blundered around looking for what was hidden,
The hider would call "Warmer" or "Colder" according to whether we were getting closer to, or further away from, the hidden object.

Maybe God plays the same game......
As we get closer to a fundamental shift in consciousness,
Fear begins to creep in.
It used to be a turn-off,
But I think I got that wrong.
It was God's way of saying
"Getting warmer!"

SURRENDER

Surrender (choosing to creatively engage with What-Is)
Is vital.

I first sought enlightenment to make my life better,
Or at least more tolerable than it was.
Things were "bad", and getting "worse".
The idea of using Enlightenment as a way out
Seems rather insensitive and selfish of me now that I look back on it --
And stupidly ignorant.
My enlightenment began
When I got the joke,
And the joke was Me,
And the joke was on me --
Enlightenment isn't about "changing" or "improving",
But about getting calm and creative with things as they are.

The discovery was, at first, crushing.
The road out looked like punishment by "more of the same".
It took a long time for me to get
That any worthwhile, effective exploration into self
Cannot be assaultive,
But must be held in a context
Of unconditional love, humility, and total acceptance.
A realisation of Perfection is not
An ideal to be achieved,
But is justly a name for What-is, Just As It Is.

I did the journey hard --
Hard on me  and on everyone who cared about me.
I'd added the idea of "Getting Enlightened"
To a long "To-Do" list,
And to the huge pile of things I'd become attached to.
It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle
Than for a logical, religious Westerner
To accept the need for trust, detachment and unconditional letting-go
Of all attachments and identifications -- ideas, concepts, beliefs, opinions and such....
While there is anything we are attached to emotionally, mentally, spiritually, or in any other way,
We are doing the splits,
And the Wholeness we look for will elude us.

Our present condition is a not a disease to be cured
Or a failure to be fixed
With tools of "enlightenment".
That's ego speaking.
Our present condition is an experience to be had
So that the wisdom gained from it can flow back to the Source
From whence we came,
From whence comes the energy vitalising this experience --
The Source that you and I truly are.

TRUST

Trust is an energy organiser.
At a time of crisis
When no rational, logical thinking
Will sustain an illusion of stability, security or control,
Trust provides a firm footing for your Self.

Trust is a knowing from deep within your self
(Distinguishing it from "faith", which is invested in someone or something external)
That Existence knows what it's doing,
(It has been doing it successfully for a VERY long time)
That life is designed to work,
That there are no mistakes,
No failures
And that survival is assured.
The only issue is, and always has been,
The quality of that survival.
That's where Trust allows us to get creative.

KEEPING OUR BALANCE

Before awakening we were so sure,
So certain of what thought we knew,
Especially in the stormiest of seas.
We dealt with life
By emotionally battling every day
Like Jackie Chan on steroids.

In awakening, we become unsure, uncertain, vulnerable.
While the boat continues to be rocked and tossed,
How do we adjust to the push-pull buffeting
Of the world around us?

With impeccable self-honesty,
Genuine trust,
And open-hearted surrender.

Behind such scary vulnerability
You will find the effortless invincibility you've been looking for.

A NEW RELATIONSHIP WITH "NOW"

It has been said --

"A fish does not know water until it is out of it."

We did not know Peace and Balance until we fell out of them.
Since then, we have lived in varying degrees of dis-comfort and im-balance.

Unable to really re-member what profound Peace and Balance felt like,
We have still used some idea about them as a reference point;
We have viewed imbalance as an aberration,
And have tried to re-balance ourselves
Against the imaginary ideal of "wellness".
No wonder we keep stumbling.

If what you're doing isn't helping you stay firmly on your feet,
Here's another way to look at it --
Instead of assuming a sense of disturbance, discomfort, dis-equilibrium or pain
As something to be cured,
See them instead
As gifts.
Instead of recoiling from the condition we're in,
It is possible for us to creatively use it
As a real, living, breathing reference point
From which to reflect upon our here-and-now place
On sliding scales
Of balance and imbalance,
(On a scale of 1 to 10, where do you feel?)
Fluidity and rigidity,
(On a scale of 1 to 10, where do you feel?)
Expansion and contraction,
(One a scale of 1 to 10....)
Openness and closedness,
Judgement and unconditionality.

In other words,
Instead of standing where you think you should be,
And viewing your experience negatively from There,
Stand instead where you are
And look at the situation,
And where you are within it,
From Here/Now.
From this new, real and actual viewing platform
There is no more good or bad,
No more right or wrong,
No more should or should-not --
No polarising,
No agreement or rejection;
There is just the eternal and abundant gift of What-Is,
Inviting us to look
From this point of view,
And re-balance
Here where we stand.

In this new engagement with Now,
Everything can be integrated with the complex harmony of Existence.

Just as a new pattern in an evolving tapestry
Develops and enriches the tapestry.

In this new engagement with Now,
We find openness, lovingness, supportingness,
And a growing sense of adventure, freedom and gratitude.

But it isn't going to happen by accident.
In turmoil we have to deliberately Choose
To switch from Recoil to Engage.

INTIMACY

Into-Me-See.....
Private words expressed publicly.

Intimacy is Communication that evolves into Communion.
The former interaction of personalities,
Through radiation and absorption,
Becomes a blending of  Presences.
Wow!

If you want it --
Give it away.
If you can't seem to get it --
Ask
How intimate are you with your self?

THE NEW "ME"

A renewed sense of self is more fluid,
More transparent,
In-differently accommodating differing environments,
Differing perceptions,
And differing people.
Defences are lowered,
Boundaries are stretched beyond limit,
Elastic and permeable.

ECSTASY -- STANDING APART.

Transformation either happens, or it doesn't happen.
It's a gift of grace.
It cannot be manufactured --
It cannot be coerced or made to happen.
Nor will it be forced upon you.
(Saul, on the road to Emmaeus, didn't get anything he wasn't looking for.)

All we can do is prepare to receive it
By opening up
And allowing ourselves to be transparent
To experience.
Any experience in particular?
Yes.The one in your face,
And the ones going on underneath
That you won't look at.
Yes, those ones.

This one -- the one that keeps cropping up time and time again;
This one -- the one we try to push away as unimportant or undesirable;
This one -- the one we won't have a bar of;
This one -- the one we want, but not like THAT!
This one -- the one we'll avoid by going for any distraction instead;
This one -- the one that our addictions allow us to say "No" to --
The one that precedes the urge to escape, the cigarette, the second cup of coffee, the chocolate bar, the second and subsequent drinks, the tablets, the snorting line, the must-have emotion, the must-have belief............
The fear that precedes the snatch for a security blanket,
The disappointment that precedes the shot for sensation,
The anger and grief that precede the grab for power and control.......
The real need that precedes the craving for a substitute.....
Yes, that one;
That's the experience that life stops for
Until we have it.

Transformation happens when our guard is down,
When the incessant yammering of our self-talk falls briefly silent
While we're fully present in an experience.
In such moments of grace
We may begin to intuit, under the experience,
A deeper energy level that's offering to move us along.
That deeper energy may take the form
Of a simple inner urge to finally complete with this experience.
If we've assessed the recurring experience to be undesirable,
We may have become what I call "Divinely pissed off".
"Enough at last!" we cry. "Let me have it!"
We're sick from being caught up in the discomfort and misery that "I" has attached to this experience.

There is more available to living than what "I" is experiencing right now.
Always.
But "my's" resistance keeps us glued
To our limited perception.
By dropping our resistance to this now,
We can have it, and be done with it.
Forever.

In this moment of surrender,
You may become aware of another aspect of your presence,
A witnesser --
That which stands apart and watches,
Un-involved,
In ex-stasis, (ecstasy)
While your "I" is having the experience.

Get to know this ex-static aspect of You --
Ecstasy will begin to infiltrate the reality of your awareness
More often.

CANCER QUESTIONS

1. Where? 
2. What does that part of your body mean to you?
3. What's eating you?

IF YOU'RE HAPPY, LET YOUR FACE KNOW.

Why can't we be honest to our selves about how we feel?
Are we lying?
Or is it that we have a limited perception of what's available?

66% of a letter I received from a friend this week was a bitch -- about the lack of parking in North Adelaide, the failure of a doctor's receptionist to give correct information, and comment about a cleaning lady she calls "Miss Woeful". (Am I the only person to see irony in that?). I commented that "You seem to be having a bad day", to which she retorted with characteristically bristling energy "Not at all -- I'm happy-happy!"

Two possibilities occurred to me:-

1. She IS happy, being unhappy. Maybe there's supposed to be juice in carping and unhappiness. In any case, she's out of her comfort zone unless she's unhappy; or....
2. What she's actually saying is that "In  a very narrow mini-spectrum within the whole Happiness Scale, I'm at the "happy" end of the range of feelings I allow myself to experience." She is relatively happy. My empathetic feedback evoked a retaliation to defend what she automatically perceived as an attack on the narrowness of what she's willing to experience. That wasn't my intention at all, but she doesn't know that. And my telling her isn't going to change her mind.

Don't you and I do the same thing?

Sometimes?

Aren't we afraid that, it we are willing to be wildly, ecstatically happy -- and show it -- we have to risk going through the polar opposite of that? It's true. We do have to take that risk. Our mistake is to think it may be fatal. Without an interplay of opposites, life soon gets monotone-ous. It's OK to be unhappy; you get to appreciate "happy" all the more!

Then again, there's an issue with the Purpose of Deliberate Unhappiness and Self-Limitation. If we outwardly show how truly happy and unlimited we are, who gets let off the hook? Who, in the past, have we tried to control by contracting and withdrawing our happiness?

Who does it to you?

Come in spinner!

UNDERSTANDING FEELING

Do you want me to understand how you feel?
Sorry -- I cannot;
It's not possible because
I haven't lived your life.

Anyway --
Sympathy is not what we need:
(We need sympathy
Like Dracula needs the blood bank)
We need Empathy,
And you already have mine.

Do you want to understand how I feel?

You cannot.

Understanding is an activity of the tiny mind;

Feeling is a function of the expanding heart.

A feeling cannot be understood,

It can only be felt.

The Mind has no feeling;

Your mind cannot walk in my shoes;
It can only think it does.

My mind cannot walk in yours.

Thank you -- I don't want your sympathy:
Thank you -- I don't need a saviour.
Give me instead your empathy.
Please sit by me for a while and be my friend.
Give me space,
And help me have my feelings.
When I'm through,
We'll have a good laugh
At the wondrous silliness
Of being human.

And I'll sit with you
And give you all the space in the world.
I'll support you to have your experience.

Have we got a deal?

SEPARATION

Separation is a superstition;
While we believe in it,
We act as if it's real.

When we were born
We did not get separated from warmth, nourishment, support or love --
We simply emerged into a larger womb
To grow, to learn
And to stand on our own two feet,
Interdependent.

There is no separating
You from your self,
You from your being,
Or you from your godness.

Like "Black cats are bad luck",
"Separation" is just a superstition.
If you believe it, it's real.
But when you get that it's just a superstition,
You've taken your first step
Into Integrity.

THE GREAT "COMMANDMENTS"

Honour your mother and father.

Love the lord godness of all being.

Love your neighbour as your self.

What if.........

These gems of understatement

Were not originally dished out

As guilt-inducing, punishable standing orders,

But offered as optional signposts to a higher level of perception

And more effective ways of being and living?

What if they were not exhortations to obey,

But a revelation

And an acknowledgment of a state of affairs

That already is?????

You cannot love God and reject any part of yourself,

Or anyone or anything else.

If you think you can,

That's not God you're looking at.

We already honour our parents -- by becoming them.

We already love our neighbours exactly as we love the facets of ourself that they mirror back to us.

When we love God, who are we loving, 

If not all things and all people that God is?

(Including ourselves).

TRANSFORMING OUR PAST

The dead Past is passed;
It cannot be changed.
But it can be transformed.......

We begin to transform our past when we accept blameless, grateful responsibility for it
For no reason other than
It suits us better.
Blaming circumstances or others for our history
Is keeping us stuck
With the drive wheels spinning,
Blowing a lot of acrid smoke
And losing traction by the second.

Once we accept loving responsibility as being Probable Cause of --
And giving willing connivance to --
Our background and conditioning,
Along with the people and energies that have helped us shape what we've become......
Then,
And only then,
Can we totally love and be in Gratitude
For the whole of what we have created ourself to become thus far.
Without what has been,
We could not have become what we are,
And without what we are,
We cannot become what we aspire to be.
Only from the totality of what we now are,
And have been,
Can we be-come.............

WHAT EXISTENCE LOOKS LIKE

The whole of existence is in a constant state of flux,
Expanding and contracting,
Coming together and moving away.

We can resist that expansion and contraction until we're blue in the face --
It isn't going to make an ounce of difference.

The whole of Existence is in perpetual motion,
Universes, tides, relationships --
Expanding and contracting,
Coming together and moving away.
The act of expanding builds the energy to contract;
Coming together winds up the energy to move apart;
Each is inherent in the other.
This is what the universe looks like --
<................................>  ,    ..............>........<.................. ,

Get used to it;
And let life do what it's going to do.
Let it flow through you.
Resistance is futile.

Consciousness itself is also subject to the same law;
It selectively narrows and expands
As we touch upon different levels of self.
We're supposed to move around.
The in/out movements need not be judged or evaluated,
Merely witnessed,
Allowed,
And integrated
To gain traction, uplift and freedom.

A NOTE TO S.N.A.G.'s

A rising level of consciousness poses a problem --
"How can I now evoke and empower action,
Without resorting to the old motivating forces of jealousy and competition,
And the male macho ego ethos of "faster, stronger, smarter or better"?

These dinosaurs were never either attractive or productive,
And they lose every ounce of validity
When openness, receptivity and a preoccupation with the Now moment
Take over.

Here's a suggested start --

Quit competing;
Start creating.
Surrender.
Be aware of what is there to be done
And give your whole self over to that.

If you're lucky enough to have a woman in your life
Who owns her feminine power,
Has quit the Auxiliary
And has let go of her resentment around eons of masculine stupidity,
Listen to her --
She'll know best where the mountains need to be moved to.

CHANGE & TRANSFORMATION

Change is just a matter of doing things differently.
Transformation is just a matter of seeing things differently.

When things change, nothing transforms.
Everything stays basically the same.

When things transform, nothing changes,
But everything is somehow different.

MEMORIES

You expect life to be linear, logical and efficiently organised?
Whatever gave you that idea?
Sometimes she is;
Sometimes she isn't,
And she will not be forced into submission.
Is life fluid, intuitive, momentary and chaotically patterned?
You betcha --
Except sometimes.

The present is never the same as the past.
But Memory brings into present consciousness
Some experience from the past that has real and living relevance
To this new moment.
It's up to you to work out just what that relevance is.
It probably won't be obvious to you
But don't worry -- there are no "wrong" answers.

EXERCISE

When exercise becomes less of an assault on the body,
Less of a struggle to get, alter or stay "in shape",
When exercise becomes a more fluid means of balancing our energies,
We become less self-punishing,
And more graceful.

Your body says "Thank you."

FOOD ENERGY

Have you never noticed
How some meals make you feel heavy,
And some leave you feeling light?

If you drew a line-scale from Light to Heavy,
Which foods would you put towards the "light" end,
And which foods would you put down the "heavy" end of the spectrum?

There is more than one sense in which "we become what we eat."

Food is energy,
And energy vibrates.
Different foods vibrate at different frequencies.
Asian cuisines, in particular, have known this for eons,
And strive to achieve a balance of all frequencies over the courses of a banquet.

The foods we eat contribute
To our perceptions of the energy available.
Become aware of how you feel
And use food to help you balance out
At times when you feel out of whack.
We speak of "comfort food", when most of those sugary, starchy substitutes for nourishment
Often add to our long-term discomfort, and -- eventually -- dis-ease.
Having diabetes has taught me the difference
Between Comfort and Balance.

Lighter foods (like salads and vegetables) tend to put me in touch with lighter, finer energies.
Heavier meals tend to quieten things down and ground me.
So now I have a choice --
To be enslaved to a diet,
Or attuned to Balance.
Both will work,
But one is more fun and more interesting than the other.

I NEVER THOUGHT IT WAS POSSIBLE.....!

Well.........
What does that tell you?

If this which was formerly im-possible,
Is now a reality,
What else may be possible?

Anything that presently looks to be impossible?

Funny how I never thought before
Of looking for Possibility
Behind the Impossible.

How much have I missed out on?
Until now.

BEYOND MERE MIND

"We become

Or, at the very least

Powerfully participate in 

What we think we're thinking."

BUT.....

 What if we're not doing the thinking --

What if the thinking is doing us?

Over the years
We've built up patterns of habitual thoughts,
Thoughts that "think us",
And a prevailing mood of habitual feelings,
Feelings that "feels us".
We long ago ceased to think much, if at all, about our prevailing thoughts,
Or feel about our prevailing feelings --
We've uncritically allowed them to dominate our experience of living,
And to rule our behaviour.
We have assumed them as the normal, general climate in which we live.
"This is our lot" is our mantra,
But there is no acceptance in it:
We bitch and rail against our fate,
Unquestioningly convinced
That the thoughts and feelings we've steeped in up until now
Are the only reality available to us,
And that anyone who doesn't think and feel as we do
Is either deluded or lucky.

This barbwire cocoon we've wrapped ourselves in
Sorts and sifts the soup of thoughts and feelings we swim in,
Censoring the perceptions that are available to us
And making bloody sure that nothing filters through to us that doesn't fit
The Programme --
Our idea of The Way It Is.

This condition is a legacy of the unkind mind --
One of the challenges of what it means to be human.
There is nothing wrong.

The narrow spectrum (compared to all that's available)
Of thoughts and feelings we entertain
Are hand-picked by our pre-existing conditioning
Of self-proving thoughts and feeling patterns --
All of them "tried and true".
So we think.

We perceive only that which our existing thoughts and moods allow us to perceive.
We have almost 20/20 D.I.Y.blindness,
And yet we are so sure about the rightness and clarity of our "vision".

Consider this....
Our mind cannot know anything;
It can only think
And one of the things it thinks
Is that it thinks it knows,
Fooling us into a false sense of wisdom.
We'll never, ever know everything
Until we give up all that we think we know
And know nothing.

Therein lies an escape hatch,

A choice to be made --

Whether to continue to passively allow the Mind to use us for its continuing survival,

Or

Whether to take up the talisman of Awareness,

And use the situation for our Transformation.

Breaking out of any circular rut of un-thought thought and un-felt feeling can be difficult.
It is a function of the Mind
To resist any influence that threatens the ramshackle shanty
Of its existing patterns.
Transformation is not, and never will be on your Mind's to-do list!
It doesn't even go into the Mind's too-hard basket
Or "Maybe" file.
Transformation -- the dreaded "T"- word -- is not reason-able......
And is therefore Verbötten!!

Transformation lies beyond mind,
In the silences between the words,
In the gaps between the road-train of thoughts.
No thinking,
No doing,
No more catharting (the process of "doing" feeling),
No more meditating (the process of "doing" not-doing),
Nothing more to do,
Everything to be and have -- be-haviour.
Realisation dawns when nothing is going on.

THE COSMIC JOKE

Awakening deeply
Is an awesome journey
Where nothing happens
And nothing changes.

After decades of trying to make something happen.........

To my mind
It felt like dying,
Until I saw the joke
And laughed out loud.

Then it happened..........

Nothing and Everything

MID-LIFE CRISIS

The point at which you realise
The things that once motivated and nurtured you
Have long since ceased to work
And are slowly killing you off.

The point at which you realise
That Survival is not, and never was the name of the game;
And that life is not about "getting better"
But about getting happy
With the way it is,
And  the way you are.

ANXIETY

Anxiety debilitates.
It temporarily facilitates performance,
Which might explain why controllers use it as a tool of motivation,
And why we get hooked on its "highs",
But eventually
The underlying
Debilitation prevails.

THE DOWNSIDES OF ENLIGHTENMENT

It has always fascinated me how
The same people who worshiped the ground that Jesus walked on
Turned
And crucified him.
Where were those he healed?
Where were those he enlightened?
Where did they all get to after Palm Sunday?
Did they go into hiding?
What happened between Monday morning and Thursday night?
How come they suddenly stocked up on stones and spittle?
To hurl at their "saviour"?

I have found in this respect that...
Victims want to make someone else responsible for  their expectations.
Think of your best friend
And know this.....
If you ever violate that person's expectations of you,
Watch your arse!
An enlightened person is no more immune from the duality of others than everyone else.
An enlightened person knows, however,
That he/she evokes both peacefulness and aggression
In those who draw near,
And is not surprised by it when it happenes.
An enlightened person knows that when an unaware perception changes,
The person responsible might turn feral in the blink of an eye,
At least covertly.
An enlightened person knows and accepts the risks
And puts him/her self out there anyway.

Most of us, like the Three "Wise" Monkeys,
Play it safe;
We keep our cards close to the chest.
We try not to rock the boat,
We try not to upset people,
We try not to make waves --
A lot of "trying-not" that gags our grandeur.
And stifles our Truth.

An enlightened person cannot hide his light.
He puts it, and his realised Self out there.

To the extent that we are open and receptive to new possibility,
We generally feel good about themselves
In the presence of an enlightened one.
And...
To the extent that we resist Openness and Surrender
We feel inwardly uncomfortable, deeply threatened,
And maybe even covertly or overtly hostile
To someone who tweaks our lariat.
We're trying to protect something
That we think we'll die without.
What could that be?
I wonder.

Enlightenment is an affront to the ego.
(And ego can smell danger to itself a mile off!)
Ego will put up a good show --
It will go along to get along with the crowd,
It will publicly applaud and affirm,
It will wave palm fronds and sing Hosannahs,
It will give effusive Agreement,
(But zero Acceptance)
Until nightfall.
Then it will crucify
The carrier
Of the Message it feels threatened by.

I know this about ego
Because I have one.
But it doesn't have me,
Except sometimes.
How about you?

I - DENTIFIES

Identifying fills a deep human need for connection:
It gives us a sense of belonging,
Whether it be to an idea, a belief, an opinion, a value, a way of being, another person  ---
And we kid ourselves that these belongings are ours.

Well that's fine, as far as it goes.
BUT....
Identification with any one or any thing blinds us
To the fact that our identifications also have us very firmly in their grip,
And to the possibilities of other levels of experience.

DEALING WITH GRIEF

In the process of grieving
We are saying "Goodbye"
To a raft of personal experiences --
To a part of our self.

If you are grieving,
Release the past,
Let it be just as you now feel it to be,
Defined as it was then by your experience of it
And the quality of your relationship with that  that experience.
Love that was lavished is never lost.
All you ever had of the lost loved-one
Was your experience of him/her,
And that lives on in you,
Along with the love that nurtured it.

Set that free now,
And  feel free
To play with it any time you like.
It lives still
In you.

Let go of the Past
And use the energy released
Creatively in the Now
Any way you like.

DEPRESSION

While it often feels like it --
Depression is not a lack of energy;
Quite the reverse.
Depression involves suppressing
Vast amounts of high emotional energy.
While I curled up in bed wishing the world would just go away,
Innuit were picking me up on CB in Alaska!
That's why it's so exhausting!

And the confusion is compounded by indecision and ignorance
About what to do with all that pent-up energy.

For a start,
Try celebrating
Whatever you think is causing your depression.

When you're stuck....
The way out usually lies hidden
Behind the very portal you won't look at.

CRISIS, STRESS, AND CHRONIC FATIGUE

CRISIS


Life is full of crises;
Get used to it.
But crisis doesn't have to be difficult or painful
Unless you insist upon it.

Crisis is nothing more
And nothing less
Than a "T" junction --
An opportunity and an invitation to try another way.
How you feel about that challenge is up to you.
And.......
How you see it will determine
Your next choices and decisions.


STRESS


Stress is the discomfort of being off-balance,
The tension between two Oughta's --
What Oughta Be -v- What Oughta Not-Be.
Stress is a sure sign of Resistance to the way things seem to be:
No resistance = no stress.

I'm not saying stress is bad -- or good for that matter,
But too much of it for too long can be detrimental to your well-being.
I have the scars to prove that.

Life is a balancing act,
And, as part of the game, it often conspires to knock us off-balance
For a very creative reason.
When the boat gets rocked
We're invited to shift our arse from a fixed and rigid, limiting point of view
And take the opportunity to re-structure our perception of reality.

Stress levels go through the roof
When we judge the feeling of being off-balance as "bad"
Instead of opting to engage with the crisis
We waste energy railing and reacting
Against whatever we deem to be "the cause" of our perturbation.
And the crises keep coming..........

Next time you catch yourself trying to fireproof yourself against the process of evolving,
Try, instead, surrendering and responding creatively to the rocking of the boat.
You have everything to gain,
Including freedom, flexibility, poise and mastery.
For the price of a little transitory discomfort,
That strikes me as a good deal

CHRONIC FATIGUE


The prize for ""life on the No's".
The inevitable result of chronic resistance.

RELATIONSHIP -- A PARADOX

Freeing and Blessing...............

It strikes me there are basically only two ways to hold anything :--

1. Limit the weight and space needed by what you want to hold; or
2. Expand your self to contain what you want to hold.

Well, I've tried Option #1. many times over, with a lack of success that bordered at times on the "spectacular". What has your experience been?

Colin Hayes used to say: "If you want to hold on to something or someone, let her go. If it/she returns to you, she returns in freedom. If she doesn't return, she was never yours in the first place. You were kidding yourself."

The tighter our grasp, the less we can contain, the more damage we do to what we're holding, and the more exhausted we get.

Q. How can we contain anyone or anything that refuses to accept limitation?

A. Give it all the space it needs.

Open up
And find the space within
That will allow whatever is happening
To happen
Unconstrained by any urge to disapprove,  limit or control.

Let go.... let go..... let go........

[Hint: You won't find that kind of space in your head.]

It's going to cost you dearly --
Your old limited, limiting, evaluating self.
You have to give that up
Forever.

Some lessons are tough.

The way back to heaven is simple
But no-one guarranteed it would be easy.

SEPARATENESS SAPS

Separation is tiring!
It saps energy from our awareness.

Nowhere is this more evident than in Social Consciousness.
When we rigidly identify with
Separating, defining social structures
(male/female; Catholic/Protestant; politically correct/incorrect; late/early; guilty/innocent......)
Social Consciousness gets sapped of its potential
For higher and finer evolution.
It gets bogged down in irrelevancies,
Opening the way for (social) dis-ease.

TRANSPARENCY

When I speak of being "available and transparent"
I'm referring to a particular perspective
That allows us to see
How the nature of energy changes
Commensurately with our ability
To be available to it
And present in it.

Everything is transformed --
The energy,
Our Self
And the world.
This is the mystery that the human mind cannot allow --
To change the world, become available and transparent to it.

Transparency is a perspective from which we see
That our thoughts, feelings and behaviours do not proscribe who or what we are;
They merely illuminate what we will and won't dissolve with.
The more we participate proactively with  All-That-Is
And allow it to flow through unimpeded,
The more radiant and transparent we become......
Vulnerable and unassailable.

INNOCENCE

Innocence is neither naivety nor ignorance.

Innocence is child-like;
Naivety and ignorance are childish.

Ignorance and naivety are a repudiation
Of the availability of knowing.

Innocence knows,
But does not let its knowing prevent it
From meeting every moment
In wide-eyed, first-time freshness.

ARISE!

Arise to greet each moment
Transparently.

Provide yourself
With occasions worth rising to.

INDECISION

Indecision is Inertia with St.Vitus' Dance;
It can be either the static inertia of ennui,
Or the dynamic inertia of an unstoppable habit;
In either case it feels like we're being racked back and forth
Between polar opposites.
Indecision is a fit of spasmodic indetermination
That results in our temporary but total disconnection
From Opportunity and Potential.

Indecision is an outward and inward symptom
Of a conflict between two or more values
On your hierarchy of "What's Important to Me".
You are at cross-purposes with yourself,
Perhaps caught in eddies of "ifs", "buts" and "maybes",
That your mind has convinced you are "relevant" and "important".
The devil lies in that kind of detail.

If you're undecided, there's something you've forgotten,
Something you're unclear about,
And something you're not being honest about --
You've lost touch with your overriding life-choice:
There's something unacknowledged that is sabotaging you
And paralysing you.
You're spasmed onto conflicting needs
And contrary ways of getting them met.

Get clear of the crap.
Drop the "story".....
Let it go;
It's blinding you to the bloody obvious..
There's nothing in all your head-cranking that's worth losing your freedom and balance.
Take a deep breath or three.

Now.....

What are your needs here?
Write them down.
All of them. Censor nothing.
Which of your needs are not being fully met?
What, if anything, can you do to improve this situation?

What do you want?........
...Out of life?
...Out of this situation?
How will one get you the other?

What is your highest Choice?
Which alternatives are most closely aligned
To the kind of person you'd rather be in your own eyes?

Look at your list.
Which items best meet your long-term needs and values?
(If your needs aren't being met, you're of no earthly use to anyone else.
The last thing a stuck person needs is a "saviour" with baggage!)

CHOICES AND DECISIONS

We began life with many choices already made for us
And we adopted them as a matter of course
In order to survive.
We went along to get along.
Other choices naturally followed the channels already excavated --
Mostly flowing either totally unconsciously or
At best, informed by limited life experience.
This process is natural and common to every human being I've ever come across.
But choices previously made on shaky awareness
Never get reviewed:
Human minds are just not happy to do that.
In our teens, most of us rebelled
Against the growing feeling of entrapment.
We didn't know, of course,
The origin or nature of the feeling we'd been trapped,
Nor did we know that rebellion was just going to make it worse.
It takes a major, catastrophic crisis (usually later in life)
Before another inner voice (often needing the help of an aware counselor)
Ever rises to challenges the strident insistences of our ego
And questions the content and validity of default choices
That we don't ever remember having made.

We once blindly formed Choices
Which have long since taken over the job of forming us.
We no longer think them; they "think" us.
Decisions, on the other hand, are formed,
Moment-by-moment,
Usually in line with habit
And usually in the limited illumination
Of our blind, unchosen Choices.

Indecision is a wake-up call
To bring your Choices and Decisions out into the daylight
And really look
At what they are
And question "How well is this serving me?"

Wake up!.......
First get clear on what you want,
(And that may be harder than you think).
I'd love a dollar for every time I've asked someone
"What do you want?"
And got a blank, incredulous stare in response.

Having enunciated what you want,
If you're still undecided,
Make a decision.
It really doesn't matter which one,
As long as you know what you want.
Any decision will do
To release you from the hiccups
And the paralysis of will.

This isn't rocket science........

The antidote for Inaction is to Act.
The cure for Indecision is to Decide.
Drano for the spirit.

A NEW ENGAGEMENT

The experience of being human
Is a process
Of a sentient being (you/me) interacting
Between matter
And conscious thought.
The quality of the thought(s) entertained
Has a lot to do with the quality of the interaction.
(High-frequency thought = high-quality experience;
Low-frequency thinking = low-quality experience)

Although we can only consciously notice one thing at a time,
Our awareness encompasses many levels at once
And our personal consciousness is always responding
To hidden forces
At many different levels of awareness.
I find this comforting
To know that transformation self-happens throughout the spectrum,
Without my having to keep tabs on it all.

The art (and fun) of being human
Lies in our ability (whether realised or not)
To participate in the interaction --
To exercise options
And alter our position in relation to the forces we're aware of,
Rather like the way a surfer "rides" waves.
The more wiling we become to engage with the conditions as they are,
And, with practice, the more adept we become at proactively surfing life creatively,
The more our experience transforms from one of suffering to one of exhilaration --
From hell to heaven.

We speak of the quality and the quantity,
The intensity and the amplitude,
The fineness or coarseness,
And the cycle and rhythm of the forces.

We respond with varying degrees of openness and closedness,
Fluidity and rigidity,
Balance and imbalance,
Awe and indifference,
Wisdom and naivety,
Strength and uncertainty,
Engagement and withholding --
Fluctuating in our capacity to participate.

Life in this new awareness
Goes 'way beyond the realm of mere understanding.
We are challenged to Participate proactively with our experience,
Unconditionally.
Knowing and wisdom will follow
As day follows night:
Without evaluation or judgment,
Without separation
Without comparisons
Without classification.
Participation with life as it is
Renewed afresh in each moment.

POSITIONALITY

Right/Wrong
Good/Bad;
Simple, convenient contrivances,
Righteous Positions taken by timid, judgmental minds
That forget............

Binary is for computers.
Inhuman and unnatural.

We are human --
Naturally.

Nothing is ever fully black nor white
For more than a nanosecond.

WHO ARE YOU?

You are what you are......
Not what you think you are,
Or what you'd like others to think you are.

How do you find out who you are?

Look around you.......

Own all of what you see
And what you think and feel about that.
This is closer to the truth of it.

Tell the truth of that
At least to yourself.

And then there is more
Waiting to be realised.

UNCONDITIONAL LOVE

Unconditional Love 

Is

The Yes

That leads to

Infinty.

UNDO UNTO....

Sometimes there is nothing to do.

Sometimes....
Doing interferes,
Blocking the natural process
Of everything ebbing and flowing in a state of flux,
Healing,
Maturing,
Changing,
Becoming into something else.

Sometimes.....
There is nothing to do
And everything to Be.

Doing can expand possibilities for us,
And sometimes......
Doing can have the opposite effect,
Diminishing our awareness and sensitivity to the flowingness and intrinsic happiness of life.
From inappropriate doing
We can get lost, frustrated and depressed.

Sometimes....
We just need to Un-do...Unto......

WILLINGNESS & INTENTION

Your Intention always shows up.

Nothing can ever -- will ever -- show up in our life,

Without our Willingness. 

Our Willingness is given direction and thrust

By our Intention.

Both Willingness and Intention can be active or passive,

Consciously directed, or unconsciously permitted.

Either way, nothing significant will ever show up without willingness and intention.

In a life lived with conscious Intent

Everything falls into place

(sometimes surprisingly perhaps) 

But there are no accidents

For "accident" is the opposite of Intention,

Conscious or otherwise.

In a life committed to consciousness

Both masculine and feminine energies are evoked --

A masculine intention to grow beyond our perceived limitations,

Couple with a feminine surrender to engage with the power of Intuition.

What is your Intention for your life right now?

Not what you think it ought to be;

But what is it as it  actually IS?

This question needs to be asked in three stages:

1) Firstly discover your pre-exisitng default, unconscious programming. That's easy -- look at what you've got. What is your fair dinkum here-and-now experience? Hmmm? Have you got a handle on it? Good. This is what you wanted. This is your Intention showing up. You may not have thought about it in this way; you may have thought your intention was something completely different. It really doesn't matter. Either way is OK This here/now is what you've got and this is where  your prior intentions have brought you.  Got it? Now, acknowledge it. You don't need to justify it -- just acknowledge that it is so; you cannot change what you do not acknowledge. It is pointless going to Step #2. until you have surrendered to the fact that you created what you've got, if for no other reason than to get you to this point, whether this is an experience of rapture, or one of divine dissatisfaction and crisis. Wake up!! The process  is working. Celebrate this moment of choice and renewed Possibility.

2) Now what is your conscious Intention? If you can't think of it, make one up on the spot, here and now. Make up as many  and as often as you like. Just remember though, once any intention is recognised, it is created. Any Intention that you find less than satisfactory, simply cancel it and replace it with something that serves you better.

3) Having formed an Intention, go deeply within with this question -- "Am I Willing to allow my Intention to show up? Am I willing to allow life to deliver the experiences and lessons I need so that my Intention can become my reality?" The answer to those questions will come, not as a "Yes" or "No" (that could be your ego talking), but as an inner  letting-go, a releasing of your personal will-power in favour of All Will. It will be a quiet "Amen -- so be it."

Any ambition to seize control and power

And win glory in a battle of life

Is a sure-fire way to discover the backlash

Of All-That-Is.

In this moment of release and surrender,

All-That-Is conspires with you
In your Intention and Willingness --

Yours is the kingdom of heaven.

SENTIMENT

Sentiment is one of those very human warm-and-runnies

That comfortingly reassure us that, somewhere under our phony facade,

We have a kinder side.

But sentiment is a Clayton's emotion.
Sentimentalists are an emotional pushover,
Sentiment is for suckers......

It has no place in Nature.

Anything that no longer serves us,

Including sentiment,

Must be ruthlessly discarded.

That is the process of evolution

And transformation.

Don't worry, 

Without sentiment you won't become an impersonal humanoid,

You will acquire an emotional backbone
And become all things, all varieties, all kinds - omnifarious.

Sentiment will rebirth

As natural, genuine, effective Kindness

And single-hearted Compassion.

FROM TOOL TO TRAPDOOR

Tools have a use-by limitation.

For example --

Goal-setting gets us moving out of a state of lethargy,
But, in a heightened state of activity,
That busy-ness may limit the natural flow of abundance..........

Religion awakens an awareness of our spirituality,
But will eventually limit our access to God.

Tools become trapdoors
When we fail to appreciate the context
In which they were useful,
And we fail to notice when times have changed.

A caterpillar that will not give up the whole of its caterpillar-ness
Will never get to be a butterfly.

PERIPHERAL VISION

There's a lot going on around us that we never see because
We get so focussed in and narrowed-down
On our stuff!
We forget to check our peripheral vision --
A 165-degree lateral and 75-degree vertical panorama
Of unseen wonders
That are available at any time
Without even having to turn our head.

We were born (most of us) seeing everything at once,
Then we learned how to focus on details.
Later, we began editing, shutting out and de-focusing
As we homed in on what we classified as "important".
We got into an unfortunate habit of blinkering out the existence of
The bigger picture.

This degeneration can be reversed quite simply and easily
With just a little perseverance.........

As often as you remember,
Take a quick check of what's going on in the corners of your eyes;
Flick-scan around the edges.
You don't have to turn your head or shift your major focus
(Unless you find something there that piques your continuing interest).
Without moving your eyeballs,
Just flick your awareness briefly around
And check your "side mirrors";
Become aware again of the wider world
Within which your comedies and dramas are unfolding.
You'll be often  amazed at what you discover
When you stop Looking
And allow yourself to See.

Try it now --
Look at this screen,
Really LOOK at it for 20 seconds.
Now mentally lean back and, without moving your eyes or head,
Allow yourself to see all that is in your whole field of vision.
Feel the difference?
Which is easier --
Concentrated Looking, or Open Seeing?
Click backwards and forwards;
Get used to consciously shifting the scope of your awareness.
Both looking and seeing have their unique contributions to make.

When you're comfortable with shifting your visual scope,
Experiment similarly with with your Listening and Hearing.
Then later, play with your senses of smell and touch.
You'll discover just how much you've been out-of-touch!

I have found
When you practice this simple discipline,
All manner of abilities and faculties will return for you --
You'll become more aware,
Safer in traffic,
More considerate in crowds,
Less likely to be caught off the hop,
More intuitive
And open to messages that come via less traditional means.

You''ll also re-awaken your engagement with the Third Dimension ==
Depth.

You can have 20/20 eyesight (albeit with glasses)
And remain blinkered and blind.
You can have 20/20 hearing
And be deaf to the world.

How sad, when all that's required
Is to reverse a limiting habit.

SWEARING

As a tool of last resort.......

Thank God for foul language:

Sometimes its the only way of getting through to some thicksters,
And of saying exactly what I feel!
I feel utterly gratified,
And it's so f***ing effective!!

Compulsively P.C., polite ponces don't know what they're missing out on.

TOOLS OF LAST RESORT

In negotiating --
The only problem I have with tools of last resort,
Is that I'm tempted to use them first......
Especially with teenagers
And old crones with attitude.

OUT OF CONTEXT

A claw hammer --
Very handy thing to have if you're building a house,
But not of much use in brain surgery.
Similarly, a bazooka is an extremely effective firearm,
Unless you're hunting a rabbit for food........

Context determines appropriateness.

HOW "I" SEES IT.....

I find it much easier to handle Uncertainty when I see it instead as Possibility;
Fear, when I can see it as Excitement and an Anticipation of Adventure;
Boredom, when I look at it as Anger that I don't think I have a right to;
Anger, when I experience it as a Passion for something valuable;
Distrust, when I choose to see it as Carefulness;
Stupidity, when I take away the criticism and see it as Innocence.
Emptiness, when I can see it as a disguise for Unlimited Possibility;

It's the critical labels and judgments we pin onto what's going on
That affect the way we see it.
How we choose to see what's happening
Presents the  problems we might have in engaging creatively with it.

The pin-ons are often more a matter of habit than of fact.
We have to step in consciously at some point
And choose to look at it from a different point of view --
Not because the new way is necessarily "right",
But just to get free of an old habit
That's no longer working for us --
If it ever did.

When we change the way we see,
We change what we see,
And that changes everything.

BEING IN THE FLOW

In the daily churn of living
I'm constantly being grabbed by a "sane" need
To get a handle on what's going on,
To grab a hold of something stationary,
To get my bearings,
To find my feet.


These urges feel like remnants of old needs to understand,
Control the hurtle,
And have it my way.


Meanwhile, the tide races on,
And I get swept off-balance once again,
Pitching head-first into the swirl.


I have to keep on re-minding myself
That life is in the water,
That the journey is in the Flow.
The rocks promise a refuge,
But if we tarry too long 
We get caught-up
And stuck

THIS MOMENT

Thanks for being here now.
It's just you and me, kid.
Here's looking at you!

MY ASSUMPTIONS

Thank you for almost always being wrong.
You remind me
I know bugger-all about most things
And a helluva lot about nothing.
That reminder puts my ego in his place --
The back-office mailroom.

THE FUTURE

You are a lot less scary when I realise that you're just a figment of my imagination.
If you ever change your mind and become The Present.,
We'll get together.